Offering to Share His Pillow
Outside Prince Jing’s residence, an elegantly decorated carriage came to a gentle stop.
The servants hurried over with a mounting stool. A maid inside lifted the curtain, revealing a luxurious interior lined with soft quilts.
A remarkably handsome young man leaned against a soft pillow with his eyes closed. His skin was as smooth as jade, his lips red and his teeth white. He looked to be only seventeen or eighteen, and his fair cheeks still held a hint of childishness.
“Young master, we’re here,” the maid said softly, her voice trembling and barely audible. A closer look revealed that her hands were shaking too.
Woken from a good dream, Shen Muyu wasn’t annoyed. He smacked his lips twice, gave her a friendly smile, patted her shoulder, then deftly took a servant’s hand and hopped down from the carriage.
He straightened his collar, adjusted the gold lock pendant hanging on his chest, and waved for them to wait there. Then he gathered up his robe and took quick little steps up the stone stairs to the gates of Prince Jing’s residence.
Prince Jing, Hu Hansan has returned!
“You again?”
The guard on duty frowned the moment he saw that face.
Seeing him, Shen Muyu smiled like he’d run into an old friend. “That’s right, it’s me again. You’re on duty today, too.”
The guard’s expression turned complicated. “…Yes.”
Ever since the young master of the Shen family had tried to flirt with the top courtesan and been punched into the water by her, he’d started showing up at Prince Jing’s residence every three days, come rain or shine, making a scene and demanding to see the prince. Counting today, it was his fifth visit. The guard had caught him three times, and all three times he’d had him bundled up and tossed back to the Shen residence.
If the brat’s father weren’t the Director of the Secretariat, an official whose rank was equal to the chancellor’s, he’d have been stuffed into a sack and thrown out for the wild dogs long ago.
Shen Muyu gave him a warm smile. His round amber eyes curved like crescents, and two shallow dimples appeared at the corners of his mouth. The morning sun fell across his skin, as delicate as lamb-fat jade, making him seem to glow.
The guard couldn’t help staring for a moment, then quickly looked away.
Shen Muyu’s eyes flickered. He crouched and tried to slip past him.
Two red-tasseled spears crossed in front of him. Their tips flashed coldly, and Shen Muyu straightened with a whoosh.
“No entry without a calling card.”
“We’re old friends. Make an exception for me.”
Shen Muyu went over and brushed the guard’s shoulder lightly with his own. From within his wide sleeve, he pinched out a handful of banknotes and waved them around, plainly trying to slip him a bribe.
The guard’s eyelid twitched. “No.”
Shen Muyu sighed. “I really do have something important to discuss.”
Thinking of Shen Muyu’s background, the guard considered that although the young master of the Director of the Secretariat’s family was usually a bit of a scoundrel, he’d been coming to Prince Jing’s residence for half a month now. He’d never been this persistent, not even when he was chasing the courtesan. Perhaps he really did have something urgent to discuss with Prince Jing.
Could the Director of the Secretariat be planning a rebellion?
The guard stiffened and gave the seemingly guileless young man a thorough look. “What is it? If it’s reasonable, I’ll report it to the prince.”
Shen Muyu blushed. He stamped his foot and said, “I’m offering to share his pillow.”
The guard: “…”
Shen Muyu seemed already to be picturing a beautiful future. A faint peachy blush spread across his fair cheeks. “We’ll sleep side by side.”
The guard: “……”
He’d really believed the flowery young scoundrel who’d even flirted with a male courtesan had some damn business to attend to!
The guards’ faces seemed to crack. Once again, Shen Muyu was thrown back to the Shen residence.
Actually thrown.
They looped a rope around him, stuffed a rag in his mouth, and two burly guards hoisted him onto their shoulders and tossed him over the wall from outside the Shen residence into his own courtyard.
Thank goodness he’d already dug up the row of bluestone bricks along the wall and turned it into a vegetable patch. Otherwise, that landing might have broken a couple of his ribs.
Shen Muyu lay in the dirt for a while. Then a pure white snake appeared from who knew where.
The white snake unhurriedly climbed up from the young man’s boots, winding its way to his lower back. It lifted its head and flicked its scarlet tongue, almost as if it were smiling.
Shen Muyu flopped around on the ground twice. “Xiaobai…”
The white snake drew in its tongue, slipped its tail into the knot, and undid the bindings around Shen Muyu’s hands in a few quick movements.
“Thanks, Xiaobai!”
Shen Muyu grinned, showing all his teeth. He brushed the dirt off his clothes and rubbed his aching arm.
This body was weaker than he’d expected. Just one fall had left him dizzy. He’d have to recuperate at home for another two days before he could go to Prince Jing’s residence again.
But it didn’t matter!
Liu Bei made three visits to the thatched cottage in olden times. Now Shen Muyu would make six visits to Prince Jing’s residence!
He was sure Prince Jing would soon be moved by his efforts. With his silver tongue, he’d soon be sleeping side by side with Prince Jing, the man who controlled Great Zhou’s political and economic lifelines. Then he’d save the entire Shen family from extermination of nine kin.
Shen Muyu couldn’t help dreaming about it again. The Prince Regent, no less.
But he wouldn’t be so untouchable for long.
Soon, they’d be the best of brothers.
The white snake flicked its tongue with a soft hiss. Detecting no stranger nearby, it spoke aloud. “I think we should try another approach.”
Shen Muyu: “Such as?”
The white snake’s slowly swaying tail came to a stop. “…”
Damn. It really didn’t have one.
According to the original novel, Lord Shen would pick the wrong side and try to help the puppet emperor seize power. He’d be implicated, charged with treason, and the entire household would be executed.
The only way to escape that fate was to make Lord Shen change his mind and stay out of the struggle for imperial power. But Shen Muyu had already tried to talk him out of it when he first transmigrated. Not only had he failed to pull his father back from the brink of disaster, he’d been branded “disloyal, unfilial, and thick in the head.”
The original Shen Muyu had been a dandy who never applied himself. The current Shen Muyu had at least survived nine years of compulsory education and made it into a decent university, but there was no way he could climb the ranks of the cutthroat imperial examination system and become an official senior to his father.
So, to avoid having the entire household executed, Shen Muyu had no choice but to find another way: he’d work hard to build a good relationship with Prince Jing.
Once they were close enough to eat and sleep together, talking by candlelight into the night, he’d secretly tell Prince Jing that his father had gone senile and wanted to help the emperor seize power. He’d beg the prince, for the sake of their brotherhood, to let his foolish old father resign and retire to his hometown.
Plan complete.
After all, in the original novel, when Prince Jing became emperor through rebellion, one of his former comrades-in-arms died. The prince had suspended court for a full three days!
He cared so deeply about brotherhood. Once Shen Muyu became his good friend, surely he’d be able to get anything he wanted.
As long as his father hadn’t done anything truly awful yet, Prince Jing should be willing to spare the Shen family… probably.
Shen Muyu just hadn’t expected Prince Jing to be so hard to meet.
Still, he wasn’t going to give up!
After all, lurking outside Prince Jing’s residence every day was much easier than studying by lamplight.
The white snake thought so too, but the gulf between their stations was so vast that it couldn’t help worrying. “Once you meet Prince Jing, how do you plan to get him to gradually think of you as a good friend?”
Powerful people never lacked friends.
If only it were a useful system. Unfortunately, it was good for nothing.
The white snake couldn’t help feeling ashamed. Other people’s systems could grant them anything they wanted, but all it could do was take physical form and keep its host company. It wasn’t useful in the slightest.
Oh, no, that wasn’t quite true. It could untie its host, curl up with its own tail in its mouth as his bracelet, and startle people when they least expected it, giving its host the thrill of showing off.
Keeping a white snake was so cool!
Shen Muyu was full of enthusiasm. “I’ll use my sincere heart.”
The white snake: “…”
For some reason, that didn’t sound very reliable.
“You good-for-nothing son!”
A middle-aged man’s roar suddenly rang out from beyond the courtyard. Shen Yangyu, head of the Shen family and the current Director of the Secretariat, stormed in, blazing with anger.
Shen Muyu had inherited his good looks from his father. Shen Yangyu was tall and upright, with regular features. Years of navigating court politics had given him the steady resolve of a man who could remain composed even if Mount Tai collapsed before him. But now, the inch-long beard on his chin was trembling with rage.
“Where did you go today?” Shen Yangyu demanded in a stern voice.
Shen Muyu blinked. “To seek the great purpose of my life.”
“The great purpose of your life?” Shen Yangyu laughed in fury. “I’d like to know what great purpose keeps sending you to Prince Jing’s gates every few days, only for them to throw you back each time.”
When the servants reported it, he hadn’t believed them. His youngest son was a bit of a rascal, but he had some sense. Chasing a male courtesan was something he could imagine him doing. Causing trouble at Prince Jing’s residence? The boy wouldn’t dare, not even if you gave him ten times the courage.
He hadn’t expected that, on his way home in his carriage today, he would see the guards from Prince Jing’s residence carrying a struggling person and throwing him into the Shen residence.
If the gold lock pendant around the person’s neck hadn’t jingled so clearly, Shen Yangyu might not even have recognized his own son.
Shen Muyu said, “I won’t tell. If I do, you’ll definitely hit me.”
Shen Yangyu’s eyelid twitched. “Tell me honestly. If it’s not something wicked, I’ll consider not hitting you.”
If he’d accidentally damaged something belonging to Prince Jing, that wouldn’t be a big deal. The Shen family could afford to pay for it.
If he’d taken a liking to one of the maids at Prince Jing’s residence, Shen Yangyu could negotiate on his behalf. The prince wouldn’t refuse him.
If he’d hurt one of Prince Jing’s trusted attendants… that would be serious. He’d make the boy kneel in the ancestral hall for three months, then go personally to apologize…
Anything but taking a liking to Prince Jing…
Shen Muyu smiled and said shyly, “Your son wants to drink and talk merrily with Prince Jing, then sleep side by side with him. Father, could you arrange for us to meet?”
The string in Shen Yangyu’s mind called reason snapped with a twang. His ears rang, and even his upright frame swayed.
His son’s lips were moving, but all he heard were four words: “with Prince Jing… merrily… sleep…!”
“Servants!” Shen Yangyu shouted, his voice cracking with fury. “Bring the house rules! He’s getting the cane!”
In the end, the caning never happened. Shen Yangyu had been blessed with a son in his old age, and even if he could bring himself to beat the brat, his wife wouldn’t let him.
Seeing that he was about to be beaten, Shen Muyu darted out the door and ran to the front hall to find his mother and grandmother.
Madam Shen and Old Madam Shen both stepped in front of Shen Yangyu, who was still fuming.
“My lord, what did Muyu do wrong to warrant the house rules?”
“Son, my grandson is a very filial boy. Did you hear some malicious gossip? If you beat him for no reason, I won’t stand for it.”
“Exactly!” Shen Muyu nodded vigorously, hiding behind Madam Shen with an aggrieved look. “I said I wouldn’t tell, but Father made me tell the truth, and now he wants to beat me.”
Madam Shen immediately took her beloved son’s side and glared at her husband. “You’re in the wrong, my lord.”
Old Madam Shen agreed. “Yangyu, you really are in the wrong.”
Shen Yangyu snorted angrily. “Madam, Mother, do you know what this good-for-nothing said in the back courtyard?”
“What?”
“He said he wants to sleep with Prince Jing!” Shen Yangyu glared, his beard bristling.
The Shen family had always prided itself on its upright morals. How had it produced such a shameless wretch?